A superhero film backed by a million-dollar company. Just what everyone wants to watch in theaters, too bad it lacks any sort of character and personality. It feels more like a visual representation of the downfall of the superhero movie genre.
Kraven the Hunter’s story is simple, though it features a colorful cast of characters. However, it doesn’t seem intentional. It’s a generic antihero storyline with mediocre world-building. The general premise follows Sergei Kravinoff, an assassin who hunts gangsters and other criminals, including his own father—though he doesn’t kill him because they are family. Someone learns of this and goes after him, and in the process, targets his family. Kravinoff fights the people who take his brother, and after a big fight scene, he wins. He eventually kills his father, who leaked his identity, and his brother becomes a mob boss. The end. If the description sounds boring, believe me, it’s exactly what happens in the movie, which has a runtime of two hours and seven minutes. This is no surprise, as it’s a Sony Spider-Man movie.
The characters in Kraven are written straightforwardly, and when watching the movie, it’s hard to take anything seriously. The opening scene is good, due to the lack of dialogue, but the questionable camera angles don’t help. In the story, Kraven is who he is because of his father, Nikolai, who is the most stereotypical Russian character—a thick accent and constantly talking about being big and strong, though every word he says feels dull. Kraven himself is a passable character with a few interesting traits, but he doesn’t command the viewer’s attention. The main antagonist is the Rhino, who has never had a good film adaptation, with Kraven the Hunter being no exception. The Rhino is usually comic relief in the film, but even when the film tries to make him serious, it’s still ridiculous. The CGI at the end of the movie looks like something from an early 2000s film. The acting feels poor, but it’s hard to tell whether it’s due to the writing or the actors themselves, the dialogue from the movie is so bad that it is unintentionally funny.
Sony, the company behind Kraven the Hunter and other “hits” like Morbius and Madame Web, of course, butchered this movie. The film went through several delays caused by worker strikes in Hollywood, pushing its release back by more than a year. It was supposed to be released Oct 6, 2023, but came out Dec 13, 2024, which should have given a major company plenty of time to refine and make a solid movie, but they didn’t. This isn’t a surprise, given that other movies released by Sony absolutely bombed, usually being hated by critics and met with lukewarm reviews from fans. Kraven the Hunter is the last movie in this Sony Spider-Man Universe. Some people are disappointed by this, while I am glad the company has laid it to rest.
While Sony has caused the extinction of its own Spider-Man universe, maybe it has a bigger game to hunt. I can say wholeheartedly that this is a bad movie. The only thing making it enjoyable is the insane writing and dialogue. If there are two hours to burn, then let Kraven the Hunter torch them; otherwise, stay away from this movie.
